In a typical inkjet recording or printing system, ink droplets are ejected from a nozzle at high speed towards a recording element or medium to produce an image on the medium. The ink droplets, or recording liquid, generally comprise a recording agent, such as a dye or pigment, and a large amount of solvent. The solvent, or carrier liquid, typically is made up of water and an organic material such as a monohydric alcohol, a polyhydric alcohol or mixtures thereof.
An inkjet recording element typically comprises a support having on at least one surface thereof an ink-receiving or image-receiving layer, and includes those intended for reflection viewing, which have an opaque support, and those intended for viewing by transmitted light, which have a transparent support.
An important characteristic of inkjet recording elements is their need to dry quickly after printing. To this end, porous recording elements have been developed which provide nearly instantaneous drying as long as they have sufficient thickness and pore volume to effectively contain the liquid ink. For example, a porous recording element can be manufactured by coating in which a particulate-containing coating is applied to a support and is dried.
When a porous recording element is printed with dye-based inks, the dye molecules penetrate the coating layers. However, there is a problem with such porous recording elements in that atmospheric gases or other pollutant gases readily penetrate the element and lower the optical density of the printed image causing it to fade.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,228,475 B1 to Chu et al. Claims an inkjet recording element comprising a polymeric binder and colloidal silica, wherein all colloidal silica in said image-recording layer consists of colloidal silica having an attached silane coupling agent. The invention is shown to improve the color density, and the color retention (or image bleed) of the element after it has been immersed in water. There is a problem, however, in that the invention of Chu et al. does not provide inkjet images with good fade resistance. It is the object of the present invention to provide an inkjet recording element that, when printed with dye-based inks, provides good image quality, color retention, fast dry time, and has excellent resistance to atmospheric image fade.